


A Scientist and a Pirate

by Runespoor



Category: Magical Diary (Visual Novels)
Genre: F/M, Family Issues, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-12 21:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19583869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: Summer night conversation, between two kids who found each other, and everything they have in common.





	A Scientist and a Pirate

“I used to think I’d wished my magic into being,” Ellen confesses one evening. 

She and Donald are looking at the stars in the backyard of his childhood home, a few weeks into their summer vacation, and Ellen already knows she won’t go back to her mother’s house. She hasn’t told anyone yet, but the feeling has swamped her guts all throughout the year, before finally coalescing during her stay with the Dansons, and this just feels like a preliminary to that.

Donald’s eyes do that startled-widening-then-warm-with-understanding thing that always warms her to her core, because he too knows how it is not to feel like anyone around wants to get you, and nods – “that’s not how it works,” he notes, “but based on the knowledge you had…”

Her cheeks go burning up with fierce delight - oh, she _does_ love him. She hasn’t told him or anyone yet, she’s not ready to say it yet, but that will come, too. Maybe soon. 

“Exactly,” she says, and she almost – she does hesitate about the rest, but she’s got his hand in hers, making her bold. “And then I wondered – maybe I wasn’t all wildseed. Maybe my father was a wizard, and if my parents had stuck together it might have been different.” 

She squeezes his hand in sympathy, like an apology that she’s not sure how to voice – _I’m sorry your family are jerks with you_ isn’t her style.

“It’s okay,” Donald says anyway, like he heard (she knows he didn’t; he’s a prankster, but he’s pretty respectful of boundaries, that’s something she likes about him, he’d never use a spell for that). “Virginia’s not as much of a pain as she used to.”

Virginia’s not Ellen’s favorite person, either; they’re friends now, but she still irritates Ellen a lot sometimes… But she imagines her own sister, and makes a sound in the back of her throat. At least Virginia and Donald are both wizards; Ellen would never be allowed to talk about her life with her own sister anyway.

“And, for what it’s worth…” he hesitates, here; a second. “You’re here, too.”

Ellen makes a complicated face. “I think they think I’m a stabilizing influence on you.” 

The old chestnut about steady girlfriends being ‘good’ for boys: she doesn’t like it, but… she remembers Donald at the start of the year, always in detention for pranking people; she liked chatting with him, but she wouldn’t have dated him then. 

Donald snorts gleefully. “Then they don’t know either of us very well, do they? You could get in _so much trouble_.”

That’s true; researching magic – actually researching, not just making stuff up and pretending it’s a proven theory – could land her in something much worse than detention. Donald and her haven’t talked about it a lot, yet; most of it he guessed. He’s the smartest person she met, in the wizarding world; the only one who seems like he _cares_ about testing stuff, about the scientific process, and the only one with the imagination to push things. Another conversation to be had.

Ellen takes a breath. Maybe tonight. 

“About that… Donald. Do you want to help me? Figure out what makes magic tick?”

The smile that spreads on Donald’s face, and the spark in his eye, she’ll never forget.

“It’ll be like a pirate ship,” he breathes; and she’s never sure afterward who kissed the other first.


End file.
